Tag: schools reopeneing

6 Ways Virtual Reality Can Transform High School Education

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

Updated: 17th July 2022

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According to Fortune Business Insights, the global virtual reality in education market is booming, and is projected to grow by an average of 45.2%, every year, between now and 2029. Teachers everywhere would be wise to skill-up and take courses in Virtual Reality EdTech in order to get prepared for the exciting changes we will soon see in our classrooms. Today, I’ve invited Kiara Miller from The Speakingnerd to share her insights into how VR will change the way we do things as educators for many years to come.

Kiara Miller

Gone are the days when all you had to do was walk into a classroom, explain a concept, dictate notes, and call it a day. These days you can offer your students more than that, thanks to technology. Technology in the education sphere is a hot topic and trust me, it will remain so as long as the world continues to embrace it.

Nowadays, teachers can offer students meaningful and impactful learning experiences using Virtual Reality technology (VR). According to this recent report by Global News Wire, the virtual reality market in the education sphere is expected to reach $8.66 billion in 2022, at an annual growth rate of 36%. In fact, 97% of students in technologically developed/developing countries would like to study a VR course.

360 VR is a type of VR that is commonly used in education. It offers immersive experiences by using specialist cameras and equipment to capture real-world locations. The content is then viewed on VR headsets or projected onto walls. Students don’t have to leave their classrooms or spend a lot of money to travel to locations that were once imagined. Virtual trips can happen anywhere and anytime as long as the students have the right equipment.

In a world where it is increasingly becoming difficult to attract students’ attention, engage them or keep them motivated to pursue studies, virtual reality technology seems to have the potential to provide at least a partial solution. It is associated with a range of benefits that we are going to explore together today.

The 7 Vivid Ways Virtual Reality can Transform School Education 

#1 VR offers amazingly immersive in-class learning experiences

What are your thoughts about students vividly seeing what is being taught rather than imagining things? STEM subjects such as biology, computer science, and architecture require hands-on experience for students to obtain a deeper understanding of the concepts and to build their expertise. Virtual reality allows educators to embed really impactful learning experiences into their curricula.

We live in a world that is increasingly dependent on technology and obtaining digital skills is seen as the way forward for future professionals. Using virtual reality in schools helps to provide in-depth knowledge to students on what is being taught. They can zoom in and out of locations that are a thousand miles away, observe how human blood flows throughout the body and even conduct specialized surgery.

VR brings things closer to students and makes things a reality that could have been impossible to relate to otherwise. It also allows students to interact with objects, chemicals or scenarios that could be too dangerous to interface with in the real world.

#2: Intricate concepts are simplified

There is nothing that hurts quite like like teaching a concept to students and then receiving negative feedback at the end of it. Teaching is a profession that requires patience, especially when describing and explaining difficult concepts or topics to students who may not have the ability to grasp the content immediately.

VR technology can help students to decipher intricate concepts with the help of images, videos, or virtual tours. VR is also an excellent add-on to a range of active-learning strategies since users are immersed in, and interact with, 3D worlds.

Intricate concepts are not easy to unpack and yet they also vary in their degree of complexity. Cases where learners can’t visualize what a teacher is talking about tend to produce confusion. Students tend to become passive learners in such scenarios, which negatively affects their performance. VR technology offers a solution in that it can be introduced to classrooms to help students get a clear view of the concepts being taught.

#3: Increases engagement 

Unlike traditional teaching methods, Virtual Reality can fully immerse students in the lesson being taught. Seeing something for the first time or that which seemed impossible increases enthusiasm and also maintains a high level of attentiveness. With the help of virtual reality tools, students can connect to worlds and objects which are normally out of their reach.

VR also stimulates higher levels of imagination which helps students understand concepts better than when just reading about them. The interactions enabled by VR help to keep students’ engagement high throughout the lesson.

#4: Increases practicality

Reading about something is different from having hands-on experience. Students that put more emphasis on learning concepts than practicing them find themselves increasingly left out. In simple terms, knowledge without practicality has a limited impact on students. For certain fields like biology, engineering and computer science, practical skills are vital to survival in an increasingly competitive world.

VR can increase students’ ability to understand concepts, implement what is learned and think of new ways of doing something better. Reading about something and learning how it works helps students believe that they are set on the right path. Also, it helps them set SMART Goals which are believable and achievable. With that, virtual reality offers a new meaning to education, by letting students know that they can put to use what’s learned.

Teaching makes a difference when learners are able to put what’s learned into use. In today’s world where skills are the top need of the hour, in-school training is essential and VR can help out. Using VR in class lays a platform for deep learning which helps students understand content better than when only surface learning takes place.

#5: It’s all-inclusive

Virtual reality has a wide range of applications in the education sphere. It can be used in architecture, philosophy, design or even in science classes. Videos can also be produced in a range of languages. On the other hand, it is suitable for all types of classes whether those occur in-person or remotely. Additionally, every student gets the chance to participate in and enjoy the experience: something which cannot be said for the majority of traditional teaching methods.

#6: Increases Retention

The purpose of teaching is to offer knowledge that can help students academically perform better and excel in their careers. However, the traditional teaching approaches, which tend to be text-based, do not offer optimal learning outcomes. With this approach, students tend to easily get bored, lose interest in science subjects and even perform poorly in exams due to low retention levels. 

VR is changing students’ school experiences by enabling effective learning to take place. Scientifically, the brain processes images better than text. This means that students can easily learn, retain and memorize what is taught in class with the help of VR technology. VR can also rewire the brain and enhance the neural relationships that are required for memory and learning to take place.

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Four tips to reignite your students’ interest in learning as they return to school

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

richardjamesrogers.com is the official blog of Richard James Rogers: high school Science teacher and award-winning author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management. This blog post is illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati.

Is it possible to rekindle our students’ interest in their subjects and a generate a love of learning when they finally return to school? Jessica Robinson of The Speaking Polymath believes so, and today I’ve invited her to share some expert tips on how to get our learners stimulated, on-task and determined to succeed. Enjoy!

As the number of active Covid cases has started declining globally and the vaccination processes have begun, lockdowns and other restrictions are slowly being lifted in various countries. As a result, educational institutions have also started reopening and again blooming with students’ presence. Although it is immensely joyous for us teachers to have our students back with us in schools, somewhere in our minds, there is a distant alarm that tries to draw our attention towards some impending challenges which we are likely to face. The loss of our students’ interest in learning is a major one of those potential challenges. 

No doubt online learning has helped us keep the flow of education somehow uninterrupted during the pandemic, but it has also led to many students losing their sincerity towards studies. Now that our students are back with us in school, we have a vast new responsibility to reignite their learning interest. We have to direct our efforts only towards effective teaching and ensure that our students get back on track and start learning efficiently. Yes, I know it will be challenging, but believe me, we, the teachers, have all the willpower and enthusiasm required to reestablish our students’ curiosity for learning despite all the hardships. 

So, ardent teachers, let’s embark on this new mission with courage and gaiety. Now, here are four tips to support you in the mission of reigniting your students’ interest in learning as they get back to school.

#1: Gamifying the learning process

The first tip we have here is to gamify the learning process. It involves converting the learning process into play for the students. This tip works well! The reason is the same as is already in your mind that children of all age groups love playing. You ask them to play a game at any time; they are always ready! So, if you gamify learning for your students, you’ll take a big step of success towards reigniting their interest in learning. Now, you may be wondering how you can add the play element to studies? It will just need a little bit of searching the internet and thinking. To help make things more transparent, let us consider an example.

Suppose you are a Social Studies teacher and you have to make your students learn about the location of different countries on the world map. You can then search the internet for popular games to play with students and then find one such game that can help you gamify world map learning. One example is Pictionary. 

You can first help your students identify different countries’ outlines as depicted on the world map. You can then give them around 5 to 10 minutes to remember the outlines of different countries and move towards playing Pictionary with them. For this, you can divide your students into two or three groups. Turn by Turn, one group will draw the outline of a country on the board, and the rest two groups will discuss among themselves, guess and write the name of the respective country on a sheet of paper. The team which gives the maximum number of correct answers will win the game. 

This way, you can gamify the learning process and make studies interesting for them. This gamification technique will, over time, enhance your students’ academic performance.

#2: Making things appear more effortless

Simple and easy things always attract us more. This is because the nature of our mind is like that only. For example, if given a choice to solve a word puzzle or a mathematical problem, most of us are likely to go with the form one as most find mathematics problematic. If we go with this basic understanding of the human mind, students are likely to be more interested in learning more straightforward concepts than complex ones.

One effective way to reignite the students’ curiosity for learning is to make things appear more effortless.  For example, in the initial days after schools reopen, we can start teaching more straightforward concepts. Along with this, we cannot spend the entire session on teaching. Instead, we can teach for some time and then indulge in interacting with our students. This will help them feel relaxed and not much burdened. Further, assigning less and more comfortable homework can also motivate them to learn effectively. This is again because students are more likely to do their homework with sincerity when they find it easy. Later on, as the flow becomes continuous, we can teach complex concepts to our students.

#3: Extend regular appreciation and rewards to your students

Appreciation and recognition are two of the biggest motivation boosters. If you appreciate a student for his class performance, you motivate him to perform even better and kindle in the rest of the students a wish to be appreciated. This wish further inspires them to start paying more attention towards studies. 

Here we have another effective way to rekindle our students’ interest in learning and extend regular appreciation and rewards to them. Whenever a student appears to be attentive in class, submits his homework in time, or gives the right answers to the questions you pose in class and does anything like that, you can try to shower words of praise on him.

“An AMAZING book for teachers!”

Moreover, you can also give rewards to the most receptive students weekly or fortnightly. To find out the most receptive students, all you’ll have to do is ask some questions regarding what you have taught on a particular day in class. The students who give the maximum number of correct answers during the decided period, maybe weekly or fortnightly, will be eligible to receive the reward.

#4: Reconnecting with the students at an emotional level

Students are more likely to exhibit a greater interest in learning when their favorite teacher teaches them. This implies that our emotional bonding is also a factor that impacts their curiosity towards studies. As a long period of physical separation during the pandemic might have caused damage to our emotional connection with our students, we’ll have to reconnect with them. For this, we can do two critical things.

The first is to portray open and cordial body language. It includes having a smile on our face, a relaxed body posture without much stiffness, and covering up more space with hand gestures. When we have open body language, we are perceived as friendly. This brings our students closer to us and makes them feel more comfortable.

The second is to have regular interactions with them. We can try to spend 5 to 10 minutes on alternative days, having informal conversations with our students regarding life, the problems they are facing, their life stories, etc. Such conversations are useful in making a way to children’s hearts. You can also share your childhood stories with them. As you keep having these interactions with your students, they’ll develop a strong emotional connection with you over time. This connection will be of great help in rekindling their interest in learning. 

Conclusion

Our students might have lost their interest in learning while staying back in the comforting ambiance of their homes for such a long period. As they start coming back to school, we’ll have to direct our efforts to rekindle their interest in learning. Otherwise, we won’t teach effectively despite giving our best. Further, we can utilize the different tips given above to make our students curious about studying again. I wish you All the very best and a good time with your lovely students.

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